What is Search Marketing Anyway?

Most online marketers use search marketing as their form of getting the word out on their products and services.  If you are unfamiliar with the term search marketing, basically it is the process of getting listed on the first page of search engines.  The higher up you are, the more potential customers you will gain. 

Statistics show that Internet users usually find what they are looking for on the first page of search engines and as high as the top three to five listings.  Second page listings might receive some traffic, however, anything after that might as well forget being found altogether.  That is why it is important to effectively implement search marketing to gain first page search engine listing.

So, how do you go about doing this?  Listed below, you will find a few ways.

Search Marketing - SEO Optimization

SEO (search engine optimization) is the free way to gain first page listing in search engines.  This is where you optimize your content with long tail keywords relevant to your products and services.  The idea is to find keywords that have a minimum of 500 monthly searches but no more than 5000 to 10,000 other competitors using these keywords. 

You can use free keyword tools such as Wordtracker or Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find your keywords and simply plug them into Google in quotes to see how many competitors the keyword has.  You will find the competitors on the top right hand side of Google. 

Other SEO methods are using anchor text (hyper-link your keywords or text phrases) and building inbound links through free methods such as article marketing, blog commenting, forum posting, etc.

Paid Inclusion

This is where search engines charge you a fee to include your website in their index. Most all search engines offer this service except for Google. The fee is usually paid quarterly or annually.

There you have it, three of the most popular ways to utilize search marketing.  Whichever method you choose, rest assure that receiving a first page, top listing in any search engine will flood your website with traffic and sales.

Check out our plan on How to dominate your market to see what we advise.